I have a problem with Blender on a Linux rig. I recently got access to a dual Xeon server, which is running Red Hat Enterprise. I managed to build blender 2.63.13 from source, but when I ran my first render (with BI) was disappointed - the machine was slower than my Core i7 Windows system.

Are there any performance flags or machine-related optimizations that can be done at build time? I find it hard to believe that a dual CPU server, with 16 cores, is slower than a single CPU machine. And I could really use that processing power.

I tried modifying the number of rendering threads, no improvements there.

These Xeon processors are less than 1 year old, so their architecture is comparable with the i7. Plus, Xeons have been built with specifically for cpu-intensive tasks, so they should pack more power than an i7, which is basically a workstation cpu.

Do you have any suggestions where might I put this question to get a better chance of help? It's turned into an academic matter for me now, so I have to see it through